Chapter Text
Gary paused for a second, unsure of what to say.
His resolve had wavered for just a second; it wasn't just about the fact that he liked another boy, that kind of realization could wait, because there was something far more pressing in his mind.
What had unsettled him far more than anything was that he even liked someone at all; this was new, and admittedly a little petrifying. It contextualized all of his odd behavior, all of his conflicting actions over the year made sense, and it all meticulously tied back to Pete.
He had plenty of experience with dating, but it was a lot easier when you didn't actually care about the outcome. He didn't know what to say or even how to say it, and he felt that all his past experience felt useless in light of the ache he was feeling in his heart.
"Hey…" he whispered, he thought back to every other past relationship; emotional…they like it when you're emotional. He wasn't necessarily playing by the same rules anymore but he figured the context of romance was universal.
"Can we talk." He asked exasperatedly, how he was going to navigate this he did not yet know, but he felt that simply seeing Pete would be enough, and maybe it'd help him reorganize his frenetic mind.
"Dude…do you even know what time it is?" His voice was raspy, as if he had just been woken up, admittedly it wasn't that late for a summer night but Pete had always went to bed earlier than kids his age, he had picked up on that over the year as they shared a dorm - Gary never found these things annoying, despite his incessant teasing, in actuality Pete's quirkiness was yet another endearing aspect to him.
Though maybe that tolerance turned into enticement due to a certain influx of hormonal fantasies; it was like looking at someone through rose tinted glasses, every flaw became a lot more manageable, because he assuredly thought with anyone else he would neither find it endearing or quirky.
And this had fundamentally changed everything in his mind; why he ran back for him, why he liked spending time with him, why he felt so desolate when they had fought, these unexplainable emotions became crystal clear. And it made sense why, up until now, he did not realize it sooner, because for the first time in his life he had felt unsure of himself - like his heart had detached from his mind and made a mess of his apathetic nature.
These onslaught emotions no longer felt as sudden, and maybe he needed a wet dream or two to finally wrap his head around his feelings, but when you go your entire life having cared so little for those around you, then it feels like an entirely foreign phenomenon.
Despite Pete's blatant annoyance, he agreed to meet Gary in less than half an hour at the beach near his house; it felt like a properly romantic and isolated area, and he needed all the extra reassurance for what he was about to do. He needed to set the mood away from prying eyes.
Gary had gotten there first, seeing as how the beach was only a five minute walk from his residence; despite it being night, the air was warm and especially humid, and though it was a lot more serene near the coast away from the majority of city life, the air was still robust with cicadas and crickets - he looked off into the horizon as he felt the sand between his fingers, he was losing his nerve by the minute but he felt that small rush of anxiety, that good kind of anxiety that reminds you that you're human - a feeling he had not felt for a very long time.
Obsession hit him hard, his mind would be consumed with the methodical need to soothe his cravings. It was without saying he had been different, ever since he could form a thought he'd always stood out. It was the reason he got into so much trouble, and it was the reason that his mind, body, even his soul could not forget those very intricate dreams and fantasies etched into his mind.
He had felt this hyper-fascination with many odd things throughout his life - toys, animals, and even concepts. Like his wicked desire to rule over empires, or that sinful wish to possess something so deeply that only you could have it.
His mother called him batty, his father called him steadfast, his counselors said it was a result of some bigger underlying issue. An issue that was never solved, possibly something he himself never wanted solved.
When he was a child, his family wouldn't let him have any animals. His mother hated them in the house - so when he wasn't being monitored and supervised, he'd sneak off to this dingy corner-street where a stray litter had lived. His mind had developed an affinity for cats, he liked their combative nature towards him, he liked things that he did not have to buy, or manipulate, or contort into liking him back.
He liked their innocence, and their dependency on his companionship, but in the one normal facet he had about felines, he thought cats were simply cute. He watched them grow, he'd sneak them food, it was a fun little secret that only he had, and he loved having secrets.
But eventually, a girl who lived just down the street had stumbled upon them as-well, and just as quick as they had entered his life, they were taken away.
Some could blame it on petty childhood jealousy, some could excuse it as a silly misdemeanor, but the very next day he trespassed onto her property, opened a window and watched from nearby as the cats curiously retreated back into the wild they had once known.
After that he saw missing posters with the cats pictures all plastered in the town-square, and a very distraught little girl.
They never came back, and he never felt bad.
That was the extent of his obsession - he hated having to share, he hated not getting what he wanted. If he couldn't have it, then neither could others.
And that was, to his realization, how he had felt about Pete.
He was sick like that, but it was that innate selfishness that festered inside him that caused his indifference about morals or empathy. Idealistically, he shouldn't chase after Pete for he would only ever drag him down to his level, but that selfish side of him had dominated his thoughts for so long that at a certain point, he never felt he wanted to get better.
Being a good person was overrated when you could stand to gain so much more by being the opposite.
Just like his favorite toys or the pets he craved, Pete had engraved himself into every fantasy, every interest, every dream of his and if he was so insistent on reentering his life than who was Gary, in all of his selfish desire to stop him?
He waited for what had felt like ages, though in actuality was likely only ten minutes until he heard some faint footsteps behind him. He turned around expecting Pete, but a sudden and unfamiliar dread had overtaken him.
It was not Pete that had arrived; the silhouette of the mysterious stranger who was approaching had far wider shoulders and a much taller build.
There were few times Gary had ever felt fear; in fact his sense of alarm was far more dulled than the average person, even now with this ominous shadow moving among areas where street lamps did not reach, he felt far less afraid than the average person.
But it was unsettling nonetheless.
"Are you Gary?" The voice was deep but still held the nasally tone of a teenager, it had a faint accent that sounded familiar yet distinctively unique; and as the figure stepped into the light, Gary acknowledged his face as being youthful, maybe a year older than himself tops, but unrecognizable.
"The fuck do you want?" This was weird, Gary was not unaccustomed to weird incidents, but this was definitely odd.
"Depends. Are you Gary?" He had tanned skin, a similar lean build, but far sharper eyes. Despite his intimidating and notable eye scar that trailed his cheek, and his slicked back hair, there was nothing else extraordinary or frightening about him.
Gary relaxed a bit more as he sized the guy up, he reckoned he could take him if necessary but he was particularly far more worried about Pete showing up at the wrong time.
His feelings had complicated things now; he started to become more aware of his actions ever since he began to care for someone who wasn't him, and that made the consequences of his past seem more wayward than they had used too.
"Yes. I thought that was obvious, now what do you want?" Gary replied, his voice had become more guarded, more tense.
"You fucked up." Edgar replied. which got a chuckle out of Gary.
"Dude you sound like a comic book villain." Gary turned back around towards the sea, he began to understand what was happening.
There was a threatening pause of silence before he turned around once more and stared at him, "I suppose you're a townie kid then."
"I'm not just some townie kid," he spat, "I'm the friend of the kid you beat up."
He made a contorted accusatory face, like Gary was some evil villain in his heroic tale of vengeance, but it was neither scary nor upsetting to him. Just because he had gone through a convoluted self-journey of change, shame, and courtship did not mean that Gary was a changed man at his core.
In fact, he felt, that all of this self-reflection had only made him more determined to cling onto his familiar old ways.
His inability to ever really progress was pretty self-explanatory. He liked Pete, but that did not mean he did not still like manipulation, violence, and power, it was more like he had simply made room for conflicting desires; he had accepted that he would just have to battle the difficulties of liking Pete and being the way he was.
And maybe deep down, he felt that regardless of how Pete felt about it, he would just have to live with all of his flaws, because Gary, who had already long ago embraced his selfishness, could not bear the younger boys rejection or his anger.
He had been at the receiving end of those condemnatory feelings before, and he deeply wished to never experience that again.
The silence stretched thin, until Gary finally graced the stranger with a callous reply.
"He attacked me first…at my own party." he scoffed, "Am I the bad guy for self-defense?"
The kid shuffled uncomfortably, but he was hanging onto Gary's every word; it implied his vengeance was not as heroic as he pretended it was, "You beat him over the head with a rock. That might fly in that pretentious phony ass school you go to, but over here…we take care of our own."
"So what? You gonna beat my head in with a rock as some kind of gang-initiation?" The summer breeze had kicked in, as the stars twinkled in the sky in a mystifying manner, it felt almost comedic how everything had transpired.
He had put all of this behind him and yet it still found a way to crawl back into his life.
"That's what they want me to do."
Gary stood up now, the air was tense and threatening but he still felt imperturbable,
"They're pissed…they want someone to blame."
And that was the breakthrough he needed, a sliver of vulnerability to manipulate and contort the conversation.
"Well you're not the only ones." He dragged his foot through the sand as a sudden ingenious idea popped up in his head. Through their entire exchange, he had not bothered to look the boy standing before him in the eyes, not in fear, but in genuine lack of respect and acknowledgement.
It was obvious that no matter how much they tried to bend and mold him, he'd never really change - he wanted power, he wanted to cause trouble, he wanted Pete by his side while he did that; the only question was how.
Everything he had really tried never seemed to work, and the ever-growing question plaguing his thoughts was HOW - how could he get everything he wanted, everything his fanatical megalomanic brain needed, without pushing Pete away.
The answer had been in front of him this entire time.
Power did not need to be obvious, and what Pete did not know wouldn't hurt him, it was simple, yet possibly effective.
"Listen, what's your name?" Though the darkness hid Gary's sinister grin, the tone in his voice was laced with a sort of poison only those accustom to his unsettling behavior would pick up on.
The guy did not reply for a long while, they couldn't see each other's faces all that well but it was obvious they had been staring into each others eyes, like some kind of tentative stand off that could spiral at any moment.
Finally, he moved a step closer, "Edgar."
"Well, Edgar, I'm Gary." He answered almost instantly, like a rehearsed speech, he closed the gap between them hesitantly.
"Listen, if you need to beat my head in with a rock so your friends will like you, you can. I wont fight back."
Of course he was bullshitting, but with the way Edgar's eyes squinted at his own, he knew he had piqued his curiosity. Like an unsuspecting fish swimming taking the bait, Gary had dropped the perfect hook.
"But it doesn't matter. Nobody at Bullworth likes me. You aren't sending them any kind of signal by doing this…" he paused for dramatic effect, "But I know what would."
The summer air felt increasingly suffocating that night.
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Pete had never sneaked out his house before, but he found it profoundly more difficult than he had thought.
When he saw kids sneak out in movies, they usually appeared to be experienced and confident - but here he was stumbling around in the dark, tripping on his own feet, and struggling to get his front door open like a fish out of water.
Part of him felt that small adrenaline rush that he'd get whenever he was convinced to do something he knew he shouldn't; and maybe that shameful side of him became more apparent because he was so impressionable and influenced by his friendship with Gary, even with boundaries in place, the line became blurred everyday.
The other part pf him felt indifferent, because he wasn't even sure his parents would care in the first place.
But when he walked out of the house, the only thing he could really feel at the time was the warm breeze of the night air, and a certain chill run down his spine like a spiritual warning.
He walked with a practiced patience, having familiarized himself with the streets of New Coventry in his free time.
He pranced through patches of wild grass as he saw fireflies float across the greenery in their ritualistic mating dances. The stars shone brighter as he approached the beach, the air became stained with the smell of salt, and the noise of crashing soothing waves became louder as he approached the outskirts of the sandy shore.
He saw a solemn figure sitting on the beach, staring off into the distance like a symbolically tragic statue. For some odd reason, despite the slight warmth that tinged the now humid summer air, Pete felt shivers prickle his skin.
It was as if just the sight of Gary had forebode some bigger truth.
He crept up, not intentionally, towards the older boy, and even though Gary did not make a move to look back, he knew he was there.
Pete sat slowly down next to his friend, feeling the cooled sand between his fingers, he had not visited New Coventry's beach since he had arrived all that time ago, and yet he felt a strange nostalgia washed over him.
The silence was not uncomfortable, nothing needed to be said for awhile - they just enjoyed each other's company.
Finally, Gary spoke, "I broke up with Christy." There was no sorrowful tone attached to her name, instead he sounded weirdly anticipative, like he was hoping or desiring for something entirely different.
Pete felt uneasy, because he had never really seen this side to Gary, and having spent so much time with him, had been wondering if this side had even existed.
He was the type of person to play with your emotions like this, to pretend to be sad to make you vulnerable and then flip the narrative simply to toy with people. But, considering it was just the two of them, Pete could not find an angle, and decided for the time being that maybe…just maybe there was some truth to the emotions that seemed to spill out of him in their shared vulnerability.
"Is that what you called me here for? Are you…" He couldn't find the right word, could Gary Smith ever really feel sadness?
"No." He answered instantaneously, seeming to have answered both of his questions, "To be frank, I never really liked her." He turned to look at Pete, but Pete continued to look onward into the sea.
"Then…why did you date her." It was a tentative curiosity.
"You don't always have to like someone you date. I'm sure that's a foreign concept to someone like you." Gary said indifferently.
He could not tell if that was an insult or a compliment, but the peculiar conversation had awakened a deep sense of inquisitiveness. He never formed much of an opinion on Christy, but the empathic part of him felt for her; he too knew what it was like being toyed with by Gary.
"Then why did you break up?" That was the next question that plagued his mind, and he blurted it out without much hesitance, the atmosphere had curated such a tender mood that he felt his mind had gotten a bit fuzzy and bold.
"Because I like someone else." It was vague and simple, but the undertone was clearly intimate.
Pete refused to acknowledge how romantic and delicate everything had gotten.
"Then why are we out here? Did something else happen? You have that mischievous grin that you always do when you're up to something." Pete ultimately decided to change the direction of the conversation - even in his oblivious mind, he felt the uncomfortable weight of every word the boy spoke, it wasn't the words they said that weren't normal, it was the setting, the tone, how Gary had a strange hopeful glint in his eye whenever he turned to look at him.
Even someone as naive as Pete could pick up on that.
Gary contemplated telling the truth for a split second, for whenever he was around Pete, it got hard to resort to his old ways, he didn't want to treat Pete like he did everyone else; his psychiatrist had advised him to start opening up more to those around him, but he wasn't sure how Pete would respond, and for the first time in a very long time he had actually cared about somebody else opinion of his awful behavior.
"No. Nothing else happened." He was a selfish person, and in that quiet moment, with the bugs all energized, the soothing sounds of crashing waves, and the shimmering of a full moon - he had ultimately figured out Pete Kowalski.
It was, in a way, saddening, to find out how simple-minded Pete really was. He was in many unequivocal ways, easy to read - and he would and could never be someone like Gary.
But that disappointment very quickly had turned to relief. Because he realized now that he did not want Pete to be like him.
Pete craved companionship, he was a people-pleaser, he was scared of rejection, and full of naive hope; all of these things served as reminders for how normal he was, how different he'd always be from Gary.
Yet he was kind for the sake of it, sickeningly innocent, and endearingly naive. Things that very few people, in Gary's expert opinion on the human psyche, were. Most people's insecurity made them into people like him, cruel and callous - so in Gary's mind, Pete was like a rare flower he found in a garden full of weeds.
And Gary knew now, why he liked Pete so much.
He became attached to somebody for the first time in his dull life because that person was special. In fact, the answer had always been so obvious, just like the cats, Pete was someone that you could own.
His negative traits made him so malleable, and his positive traits made him so lonely.
Gary had made the mistake of thinking Pete was like him in many ways, sure they shared that innate loneliness you had when you existed on the outs of society; but he realized his error that day. Maybe it was the sound of the ocean, or the dancing bugs, or the breeze gently blowing, but his mind had felt so clear that night.
Even though Pete was kind, and empathetic, and forgiving, things Gary could never be - he realized that those differences did not have to separate them.
Because while Pete might've been definitively plain on many accounts, he was monumentally different in that he normalized Gary. He was the one person, the ONLY person, in this entire suffocating and grisly world that made him feel human.
That was what sealed it all, like having taken said flower and locking it away in a glass box.
Because sure, there might be people like Pete, in that, they too would possess the qualities of a genuinely good human; but how many would Gary like? And how many could have such a pliant personality fit for manipulating?
How many would he want to run back into crowds for to save? How many would fix his nose in a quiet motel room? How many would he spend endless days with him in a confined dorm room, talking about nothing and yet saying everything? How many would sit on a beach in a crummy town and enjoy his company?
How could Gary ever let this go? How could he find anybody else like the boy that sat next to him?
The answer was that he couldn't.
Sure, it was inconvenient, for starters Pete was a boy, and that kind of nonconformity had to be seriously considered at later points if Gary wished to progress into this unknown territory, but he was also weak and sensitive; Gary could not carelessly drag him into trouble, he had to be meticulous, with what he revealed to Pete, how he acted around him, even something as minute as how he spoke to him.
If this was to happen, he could not let Pete slip from his grasp, in fear that, unlike what had happened just weeks ago, Pete's anger would etch into their relationship in permanence.
So, he lied, with an alarming lack of guilt and shame, with the paranoid mantra that in actuality he was doing the right thing.
He was a greedily selfish man; and if he could keep his devilish schemes, his obsession for power and control, and his manipulative tendencies, while also assuredly stringing Pete alongside, like some lovesick loyal puppy dog, then that would be his newfound goal.
"Would you like to come back to my place?" Gary said, after an elongated pause of silence.
"Does that imply something?" It was as clear as day what this entire conversation had alluded too, but both boys were downright frightened to call it what it was; it was easy, in the comfort of a dark night away from the rest of human civilization, with the confidence of blissful emotions impassioned by softened atmosphere to spill dark secrets.
It was easy now, because it was simply one of those days where you had felt like you were floating on a cloud, like you had taken some kind of truth serum; but what about the morning? When you wake up and all of that euphoric boldness dissipated and you were left with nothing but cold regret.
But for Gary, somebody who had already come to terms with his feelings, with his relationship with Pete, and especially as someone who had in a way already tried to confess, in that dark bedroom under alcoholic courage, he was more familiarized with how to go about it.
More than anything, he was not a coward. Pete was hesitant, scared, willing to forget this even happened, but it didn't matter what Pete needed to hear to stay by Gary's side, Gary would say it all.
"It doesn't have too. Just don't leave me alone again. Don't run away. Don't hate me, Pete Kowalski. I can take it from others, but I can't bear it from you."
Gary looked at Pete, though it was dark, the moonlight clearly reflected in his eyes, his accusatory, saddened, and enthralling eyes.
"Just keep me company, for the night."
Pete said yes, because he was scared that if he said no, or that if he said nothing, Gary might disappear. That he would become as translucent as the moonlight that enveloped them and slip between his grasps.
If he woke up in the morning, full of regret, would it not have been better to experience that regret with somebody else?
They walked back to Gary's place, as the realization of what they had talked about washed over Pete.
The walk was short, but for odd reasons time seemed to completely vanish; lines had become blurred, and boundaries seemed to slowly fade as they two seemingly edged closer to a relationship neither would ever truly comprehend.
It was special, scary, and yet familiar in all of its abnormality.
"I have a surprise for you." Gary spoke, as they approached the gates of his opulent vacation home.
"Not another one." Pete joked, he tried to keep the mood lighthearted to justify the thick swell that formed in his stomach whenever he thought about the implications of taking things further.
He was scared. Of course he was scared; he had never liked a single person, he had thankfully never felt a particular way about another guy, and more than anything, it being Gary felt like some cruel twist of fate.
But Gary was being nice, and he was handsome in his boyish youth, and in many ways, Pete had wanted to be like him, but settled for simply being near him, so he went along because his subconscious need for a friend had complicated his ability to say no.
"No…it's different." He spoke. "And optional."
Pete arched his eyebrow, "Optional?" Among the many unusual things that had seemed to be happening frequently during this late night hang out, this was probably the strangest.
He had to admit that Gary seemed different, not in the sense that he had undergone some profound deep change within himself, rather, that he felt a tad more sensible. Like he was walking on thin ice trying to say all of the right things, of course that was for an obvious reason that had already been laid out on the table, but Pete did not yet acknowledge that Gary was playing by that universal rulebook, the kind of rulebook that leads to people tangled in a bed even if they promised themselves they wouldn't.
It was charisma, charm, and allure all in one.
He was running away from it as desperately as he could, hoping that maybe if he didn't address it, then they could just forget about it all in the morning.
It seemed however, that Gary was keen on making it so obvious that it was impossible to run.
And as they entered the house, Pete realized in his attempts to run away from the inevitable, he had only actually backed himself into a corner